59  6 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


497 


among  the  others,  as  I  fear  I  did  last  year,  like  a 
newspaper  dropped  on  a  wood  fire? 

With  all  this  in  view,  I  intend  to  spend  this 
summer  with  the  family,  and  also  next  winter, 
unless  I  have  some  much  more  desirable  position 
than  this  one  offered  me.  I  am  quite  certain  that 
I  shall  be  able  to  get  on  very  nicely  with  them 
this  time. 

I  have  a  kind  of  presentiment  that  I  have  not 
been  able  to  convince  you.  You  never  have 
approved  of  me  when  I  did  anything  silly,  —  I  did 


not  mean  to  write  that  word,  but  I  scorn  to 
scratch  it  out,  —  what  I  mean  is  vacillating.  To 
conclude,  I  have  made  up  my  mind,  and  I  hope 
you  can  bring  yourself  to  agree  with  me. 

Always  your  friend,  John  Peterson  Markoe. 

Heinrich  finished  the  letter  and  then 
tore  it  into  fragments. 

"  Fool  !  "  he  muttered,  stamping  on 
the  floor  so  that  the  room  shook. 


THE    HUGUENOT    IN    NEW    ENGLAND. 


J&& 


By  Horace   Graves. 


HERE  is  a  great  difference 
between  the  New  Eng- 
lander  and  the  English- 
man. That  difference  is 
prjLJL.'v)  not  simply  in  dress,  or 
idiom,  or  accent.  The  pe- 
culiarities on  both  sides  are 
deep  -  seated.  They  find 
expression  in  figure  and 
countenance,  and  in  physi- 
cal and  mental  activity.  The  burly  and 
heavy  build  of  the  typical  Englishman  is 
not  in  more  pronounced  contrast  with  the 
slender  and  active  form  of  the  American, 
than  are  his  conservative  mental  opera- 
tions with  the  alertness  of  his  cisatlantic 
kinsman.  There  is  greater  flexibility  to 
the  Yankee  intellect,  more  liberality  gen- 
erally, a  larger  hospitality  toward  men  and 
ideas  that  he  has  not  been  accustomed 
to  and  familiar  with.  While  the  tem- 
perament is  livelier  and  more  cheer- 
ful, the  physical  coloring  is  darker  and 
warmer.  The  ruddy  cheek  and  blue  eye 
of  the  Saxon  are  rarer  among  the  New 
Euglanders ;  brown  skin  and  dark  eyes 
predominate. 

Lest  this  variance  may  seem  fanciful 
and  overstated,  let  me  call  attention  to 
the  observations  of  an  author  whose  keen 
observation  none  will  question.  Haw- 
thorne, in  his  "  English  Note- Book,"  sets 
forth  in  strong  colors  the  characteristics 
of  the  Englishmen  who  have  remained  at 
home,  and  of  those  who  are  the  product 
of  two  or  three  centuries  of  life  on  this 
side  of  the  ocean.  "We,  in  our  dry 
atmosphere,"  he  wrote,  in  1863,  "  are  get- 


ting nervous,  haggard,  dyspeptic,  exten- 
uated, unsubstantial,  theoretic,  and  need 
to  be  made  grosser.  John  Bull,  on  the 
other  hand,  has  grown  bulbous,  long- 
bodied,  short-legged,  heavy-witted,  mate- 
rial and,  in  a  word,  too  intensely  English. 
In  a  few  centuries,  he  will  be  the  earthiest 
creature  that  the  earth  ever  saw." 

This  description  surely  cannot  be  criti- 
cised for  not  being  candid  or  explicit. 
But  when  our  American  consul  comes  to 
treat  of  the  British  woman,  he  seems  to 
have  abandoned  all  pretence  of  gallantry 
in  his  desire  to  depict  her  as  she  is.  He 
wrote  :  "  I  have  heard  a  good  deal  of  the 
tenacity  with  which  the  English  ladies 
retain  their  personal  beauty  to  a  late 
period  of  life;  but  (not  to  suggest  that 
an  American  eye  needs  use  and  cultiva- 
tion before  it  can  quite  appreciate  the 
charm  of  English  beauty  at  any  age)  it 
strikes  me  that  an  English  lady  of  fifty  is 
apt  to  become  a  creature  less  refined  and 
delicate,  so  far  as  her  physique  goes,  than 
anything  that  we  western  people  class 
under  the  name  of  woman.  She  has  an 
awful  ponderosity  of  frame,  not  pulpy, 
like  the  looser  development  of  our  few  fat 
women,  but  massive,  with  solid  beef  and 
streaky  tallow  ;  so  that  (though  struggling 
manfully  against  the  idea)  you  inevitably 
think  of  her  as  made  up  of  steaks  and 
sirloins.  When  she  walks,  her  advance 
is  elephantine.  When  she  sits  down  it  is 
on  a  great  round  space  of  her  Maker's 
footstool,  where  she  looks  as  if  nothing 
could  ever  move  her.  Her  visage  is  un- 
usually grim  and  stern,  seldom  positively 


498 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


forbidding,  yet  calmly  terrible,  not  merely 
by  its  breadth  and  weight  of  feature,  but 
because  it  seems  to  express  so  much 
well-founded   self-reliance." 

We  find  the  grave  Emerson  making 
substantially  the  same  report  in  his 
"English  Traits." 

While  we  hope  that  American  women 
have  attained  to  something  more  spirit- 
uelle  than  is  possessed  by  the  women 
whom  Hawthorne  saw  on  the  old  soil,  it 
is  interesting  to  notice  that  he  attributed 
the  diversity  solely  to  climate.  It  is  a 
serious  responsibility  that  he  places  on 
physical  surroundings ;  but  the  theory 
seems  hitherto  to  have  been  accepted  as 
sufficient.  It  is  generally  believed  that 
a  clearer,  sunnier  air  has  browned  the 
race  permanently,  and  begotten  nervous- 
ness of  physical  and  mental  constitution. 
It  is  assumed  that  there  could  have  been 
no  more  powerful,  and  indeed  no  other 
intervening  cause.  In  support  of  this 
conclusion,  it  is  pointed  out  that  the  New 
England  colonists  were  purely  and  exclu- 
sively English.  Palfrey  contends  that  the 
population  "  continued  to  multiply  for  a 
century  and  a  half  on  its  own  soil,  in 
remarkable  seclusion  from  other  commu- 
nities." John  Fiske  accepts  Palfrey's 
statement,  and  cites  Savage  as  demon- 
strating, after  painstaking  labors,  that 
ninety-eight  out  of  every  hundred  of  the 
early  settlers  could  trace  their  descent 
directly  to  an  English  ancestry.  These 
authorities  would  leave  us  no  alternative 
but  to  conclude  that  climate  alone  must 
have  wrought  the  remarkable  transforma- 
tion of  mind,  character  and  body,  through 
which  have  been  evolved  and  fixed  the 
idiosyncrasies  of  the  New  Englander. 

If,  however,  climate  has  been  the 
potent  cause  of  these  changes,  why  did 
not  the  modification  give  some  evidence 
of  its  advance  in  the  first  one  hundred 
years  of  colonial  life  ?  On  the  contrary, 
the  portraits  of  the  men  who,  in  1776, 
contended  for  our  rights  on  the  battle 
field  and  in  the  legislature  show  us 
veritable  Englishmen.  Yet,  in  1863,  the 
change  had  come  about,  and  Hawthorne 
found  the  two  peoples  radically  different. 

Climate  is  slower  in  its  effects  than  this. 
An  Asiatic  may  live  at  the  north  pole  for 
a  cycle  of  years,  and  still  retain  his  hue, 


his  coarse  black  hair  and  coal-black  eyes ; 
not  the  faintest  sign  of  bleaching  betrays 
its  approach.  No  one  imagines  that 
the  negro  would  grow  a  shade  lighter 
under  the  glare  of  the  perennial  northern 
whiteness,  though  he  remained  there  for 
countless  generations,  provided  there 
were  no  admixture  of  a  lighter-hued  race. 
It  is  equally  impossible  that -the  Yankee 
could  have  been  so  greatly  differentiated 
from  the  Englishman  in  three  or  four 
generations  merely  from  exposure  to  a 
climate  but  little  unlike  that  of  Great 
Britain. 

There  was  some  excuse  for  the  theory 
of  atmospheric  influence  before  Darwin 
passed  on  that  question.  His  demonstra- 
tion has  destroyed  the  former  notions. 
The  result  of  his  exhaustive  investigation 
is  thus  summed  up :  "  It  was  formerly 
thought  that  the  color  of  the  skin  and  the 
character  of  the  hair  were  determined  by 
light  or  heat ;  and,  although  it  can  hardly 
be  denied  that  some  effect  is  thus  pro- 
duced, almost  all  observers  now  agree 
that  the  effect  has  been  very  small 
even  after  exposure  during  many  ages." 
At  another  point  in  the  "  Descent  of 
Man,"  the  author  says :  "  If,  however, 
we  look  to  the  races  of  men,  as  distrib- 
uted over  the  world,  we  must  infer 
that  their  characteristic  differences  can- 
not be  accounted  for  by  the  direct 
action  of  different  conditions  of  life, 
even  after  an  exposure  to  them  for 
an  enormous  period  of  time."  In  the 
same  work,  Darwin  repeats :  "  Of  all 
the  differences  between  the  races  of  man, 
the  color  of  the  skin  is  the  most  conspic- 
uous and  one  of  the  most  marked.  Dif- 
ferences of  this  kind,  it  was  formerly 
thought,  could  be  accounted  for  by  long 
exposure  under  different  climates ;  but 
Pallas  first  showed  that  this  view  is  not 
tenable,  and  he  has  been  followed  by 
almost  all  anthropologists."  That  those 
other  respects  in  which  we  have  deviated 
from  the  earlier  type  cannot  be  attributed 
to  climate  any  more  than  can  the  com- 
plexion, is  manifest  from  the  passage  in 
which  Darwin  writes  that  "  Mr.  B.  A. 
Gould  endeavored  to  ascertain  the  nature 
of  the  influences  which  thus  act  on 
stature ;  but  he  arrived  only  at  negative 
results,  namely  that  they  did  not  relate  to 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


499 


climate,  the  elevation  of  the  land,  soil,  or 
even,  '  in  any  controlling  degree,'  to  the 
abundance  or  need  of  the  comforts  of 
life."  * 

Thus  the  great  philosopher  hunts  down 
and  despatches  the  loose  theories  which, 
before  his  day,  satisfied  hasty  generalizers 
upon  the  causes  of  men's  variations  in 
complexion,  figure  and  stature.  That  the 
difference  of  mental  constitution  was 
brought  about  by  a  breeze  more  or  less, 
or  a  more  or  less  plentiful  sunshine,  was 
equally  fallacious  and  unsubstantial. 

But  we  have  not  far  to  seek  that  differ- 
entiating cause,  although  it  has  so  long 
evaded  detection.  Had  the  result  of  re- 
cent investigation  been  known  to  Haw- 
thorne, he  would  undoubtedly  have  recog- 
nized the  influence,  for  he  was  close  upon 
its  discovery.  In  commenting  on  the 
heaviness  of  the  English,  he  philosophizes 
thus  :  "  Heretofore,  Providence  has  obvi- 
ated such  result  by  timely  intermixture  of 
alien  races  with  the  old  English  stock; 
so  that  each  successive  conquest  of  Eng- 
land has  proved  a  victory  by  revivification 
and  improvement  of  its  native  man- 
hood." This  change,  then,  or,  if  it  be 
not  too  strong  a  word,  this^  transforma- 
tion, of  which  we  have  spoken,  must  have 
come  from  intermarriages  between  the 
early  English  colonists  and  some  race  of 
a  slighter  build,  a  less  sombre  disposition, 
a  more  active  mentality  and  an  intenser 
nature.  There  is  no  race  which  at  once 
combined  proximity  and  the  other  requi- 
sites of  the  problem,  except  the  French  ; 
and  in  the  French  —  slender,  supple, 
sinewy,  cheerful,  versatile,  with  their 
clearness  and  quickness  of  mental  vision 
—  were  to  be  found  every  required  ele- 
ment. After  Hawthorne's  vigorous  analy- 
sis of  the  English,  it  is  only  justice  to 
permit  Lavater  to  express  his  estimate  of 
the  French  ;  for  each  author  is  pitiless  in 
his  examination  and  extremely  acrid  in 
statement.  In  his  famous  work  on  phys- 
iognomy, the  German  Swiss  says :  "  In 
the  temperament  of  nations,  the  French 
is  that  of  the  sanguine,  frivolous,  benevo- 
lent and  ostentatious.  The  Frenchman 
forgets  not  his  inoffensive  parade  till  old 
age  has  made  him  wise.  At  all  times 
disposed  to  enjoy  life,  he  is  the  best  of 

*"  Descent  of  Man,"  Part  I.,  chap,  iv.,  p.  no. 


companions.  He  pardons  himself  much, 
and  therefore  pardons  others.  His  gait 
is  dancing,  his  speech  without  accent, 
and  his  ear  incurable.  Wit  is  his  inherit- 
ance. His  countenance  is  open  and  at 
first  sight  speaks  a  thousand  pleasant,, 
amiable  things.  His  eloquence  is  often 
deafening ;  but  his  good  humor  casts  a 
veil  over  his  failings.  He  is  all  appear- 
ance, all  gesture." 

This  picture  is  drawn  by  the  physiog- 
nomist, who  avowedly  judges  by  what  is 
on  the  surface  ;  yet  the  qualities  enumer- 
ated are  not  objectionable,  but  rather  de- 
sirable when  the  end  in  view  happens  to 
be  the  amelioration  of  the  sombre  grim- 
ness  of  the  English  Puritan.  Matthew 
Arnold,  moreover,  in  his  graceful  essay  on 
Eugenie  de  Guerin,  has  convinced  us  that 
there  is  another  element  in  France,  not 
frothy,  but  sincere  and  devout,  without 
which  the  nation  could  never  have  ex- 
isted all  these  centuries.  It  was  the 
Frenchman  of  that  class  who  produced 
the  effect  we  are  talking  of.  How  effectu- 
ally it  was  accomplished  is  plain  to  every 
American  who  visits  the  parent  isle.  It 
remains  to  indicate  when  and  where 
there  was  a  sufficient  intermingling  of 
Frenchmen  with  the  English  colonists  to 
bring  about  such  results. 

To  one  who  is  in  any  degree  familiar 
with  the  story  of  our  national  growth,  it 
is  unnecessary  to  mention  the  Huguenot 
immigration  as  the  movement  through 
which  the  transformation  in  the  aspect 
and  nature  of  the  English  was  brought 
about.  The  extent  of  that  movement 
has  not  been  appreciated,  because  the 
French  refugees  came  to  New  England 
from  motives  so  much  like  those  which 
brought  the  early  settlers,  that  these 
strangers  did  not,  on  arriving,  exhibit  the 
strong  contrast  with  their  English  prede- 
cessors which  appeared  on  the  entry  of 
the  French  exiles  into  other  parts  of  our 
country.  The  Huguenots  and  the  Puri- 
tans had  both  suffered  bitter  persecution. 
They  had  faced  death  from  devotion  to 
the  same  religious  principles.  Moreover, 
they  were  not  strangers  to  one  another ; 
for  when  the  little  congregation  from 
Scrooby  sought  refuge  in  Holland,  they 
found  Leyden  full  of  Frenchmen  who  had 
fled    from   their   native   country.     For  a 


500 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


time  both  bodies  of  people  were  allowed 
to  worship  in  the  same  edifice,  and  both 
were  eagerly  waiting  the  opportunity  to 
put  the  ocean  between  themselves  and 
their  enemies.  Yet,  however  great  the 
similarity  in  the  relations  of  each  party  to 
its  old  home,  there  was  one  particular  in 
which  they  differed  radically.  The  Eng- 
lish were  fearful,  above  all  things,  lest 
they  should  lose  their  "English  name 
and  English  tongue  ;  "  but  the  French- 
men were  remarkably  indifferent  to  their 
native  speech,  and  were  ready,  as  soon  as 
possible,  to  translate  their  names  into 
equivalent  Dutch  or  English,  according  to 
the  predominant  population  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  they  happened  to  be. 
The  English  were  enabled  to  be  the 
first  to  depart  to  the  longed-for  haven  of 
rest;  and  some  of  the  Frenchmen,  im- 
patient to  get  away,  threw  in  their  lot 
with  those  who  have  since  been  known 
as  the  Pilgrim  Fathers.  The  Huguenots 
assimilated  with  their  fellow  voyagers  so 
unobtrusively  that  we  have  almost  lost 
sight  of  the  fact  that  even  the  Plymouth 
colony  was  not  of  pure  and  unmixed  de- 
scent. She  whose  name  the  poet  has 
culled  from  those  early  annals  to  adorn 
his  verse,  the  maiden  Priscilla,  is  discov- 
ered to  be  a  Huguenot.  The  patronymic 
Mullins  would  suggest  a  Hibernian 
Frenchman ;  but  that  is  the  fault  of  the 
bungling  tongue  of  the  farmers  from 
Nottingham  and  York.  Her  father  was 
William  Molines.  It  has  always  been  a 
source  of  wonder  that  an  English  girl 
could  have  had  the  ready  wit  to  give 
John  Alden  "  the  tip  "  that  released  him 
from  his  ambiguous  wooing  and  herself 
from  the  domination  of  the  fierce  little 
captain.  How  blind  we  were  to  the  Gal- 
lic coquetry  with  which  she  held  on  to 
Miles  till  she  secured  John  !  She  was  a 
worthy  progenitor  of  the  Yankee  girl  in 
her  ability  to  take  care  of  herself.  We 
must  blot  out,  then,  from  the  historic 
portrait  the  blue  eyes  and  rosy  cheeks  of 
the  English  maiden  whom  our  fancy  has 
called  up  whenever  we  have  thought  of 
Priscilla  ;  and  we  must  paint  in  a  slen- 
der, graceful,  black-haired  brunette,  with 
brown-black  velvet  eyes  and  long  sweep- 
ing lashes,  from  under  which  were  shot 
such  glances  as   melted  the  hearts  of  all 


the  colony  ;  and  we  must  adorn  the  Puri- 
tan garb  with  some  dainty  ribbon.  Like 
the  Dutch  tulips  which  she  planted  amid 
the  hollyhocks  and  lilacs,  she  blooms  and 
flashes  in  the  garden  of  history,  the  more 
fortunate  sister  of  Evangeline. 

What  rich  reward  may  we  not  expect 
from  researches  in  this  field,  when  right 
at  the  heart  of  the  first  effort  to  settle  New 
England  is  this  revelation  of  the  stealthy  in- 
troduction of  the  Huguenot  to  the  hearth- 
stone and  into  the  very  hearts  of  our  an- 
cestors !  After  that,  it  cannot  astonish  us 
to  learn  that  several  of  the  eminent  men 
of  our  early  history  were  in  some  degree 
of  Huguenot  descent.  We  have  always 
known  that  the  mother  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  was  a  Huguenot.  Perhaps  we 
might  have  guessed  as  much  from  his 
character,  since  there  appears  in  him  all 
the  brilliancy  of  that  nationality,  with 
the  wonderful  gift  of  crystal  clearness  of 
thought  and  expression.  Heredity,  too, 
many  excuse  some  of  his  faults.  Associ- 
ated with  Hamilton  in  establishing  the 
foundation  of  our  national  finances  was 
Albert  Gallatin,  whose  name  betrays  a 
Huguenot  extraction.  There,  too,  is  the 
illustrious  record  of  John  Jay  and  his 
descendants,  whose  ancestor,  Pierre  Jay, 
fled  from  La  Rochelle  to  America.  And 
there  are  the  Bayards,  who  have  exhibited 
in  our  country  the  qualities  which  made 
the  chevalier  in  his  time  the  subject  of 
generous  eulogy. 

New  England  would  spurn  any  sum- 
mary of  her  history  which  omitted  to 
mention  Faneuil  Hall.  The  Faneuils 
were  from  La  Rochelle ;  and  Andre  Fa- 
neuil of  Boston  adopted  Peter  Faneuil, 
the  son  of  his  brother  Benjamin,  who  had 
settled  in  New  York.  The  family  became 
eminent  as  merchants  almost  as  soon  as 
the  hand  of  persecution  was  stayed  from 
harrying  them.  The  thrift  of  the  Prot- 
estant French  is  proverbial.  It  found 
speedy  expression  in  commerce  and  in 
devising  new  subjects  of  manufacture  and 
exportation.  As  they  were  the  founders 
of  many  British  industries  when  they 
settled  in  England,  so  they  were  most 
efficient  in  developing  the  resources  of 
the  new  country.*     But  they  were  never 

*  Baird's  "  Emigration  of  the  Huguenots  to  Americ»," 

Vol.    II.,  p.   20I. 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


501 


so  engrossed  in  trade  that  they  allowed 
their  passion  for  civil  and  religious  liberty 
to  expire  or  even  smoulder.  It  was  a 
Huguenot,  Paul  Revere,  who  was  the 
trusted  messenger  of  the  Boston  patriots 
on  the  night  before  the  conflict  at  Lex- 
ington. 

The  race  of  the  Huguenot  has  blos- 
somed into  genius  in  unexpected  places, 
and  this  not  in  the  past  only,  for  a  recent 
president  of  the  United  States,  one  of  the 
most  gifted,  —  Garfield,  —  was  a  son  of 
the  Huguenots  ;  his  mother  was  a  Ballou,  a 
name  which  has  been  made  illustrious  by 
Hosea  and  Maturin.  Our  latest  literature 
has  been  adorned  by  the  productions 
of  Thoreau,  Lanier,  Tourgee  and  Janvier, 
all  of  them  descendants  of  Protestant 
French  refugees.  In  fact,  almost  the 
first  notes  of  song  in  this  country  came 
from  a  Huguenot,  —  Freneau. 

When  one  bethinks  himself  of  the 
mark  which  has  been  made  by  men  of 
this  extraction,  the  conviction  is  inevi- 
table, either  that  this  line  of  descent  is 
singularly  and  richly  endowed,  or  that  the 
Huguenots  were  vastly  more  numerous 
and  have  contributed  more  extensively  to 
the  constitution  of  the  American  people 
than  is  generally  suspected.    - 

Although  that  claim  might  be  readily 
admitted  in  respect  to  other  parts  of  our 
country,  there  would  be  some  hesitation 
in  conceding  as  much  for  New  England. 
Yet  Palfrey  is  more  than  conservative 
when  he  states,  in  his  History  of  New 
England,  that  at  least  one  hundred  and 
fifty  Huguenot  families  came  to  Massachu- 
setts after  the  revocation  of  the  edict  of 
Fontainebleau  in  1685.  He  makes  no  ac- 
count of  those  who  were  already  here,  nor 
of  those  who  did  not  come  directly  from 
France,  nor  of  those  who  kept  coming 
in  small  parties  from  time  to  time,  even 
down  to  1776.  Nor  does  he  take  account 
of  the  number  who  have  names  that  seem 
to  be  English  or  Dutch,  but  which  are 
French  translated,  as  in  the  case  of  some 
of  the  Duboises,  living  in  Leyden,  who 
allowed  themselves  to  be  called  Van  den 
Bosch,  and  came  to  America  under  the 
Dutch  version  of  their  patronymic. 
Gerneau,  in  English  mouths,  became 
Gano,  and  those  who  bore  the  name, 
tiring  of  correcting  habitual    mispronun- 


ciation, at  last  consented  to  speak  and 
write  their  name  in  the  corrupted  form. 
Thus  Erouard  became  Heroy,  Bouquet 
is  now  spelled  Bockee,  Tissau  became 
Tishew,  Fleurri  is  anglicized  into  Florence, 
Olivier  has  been  confused  with  the 
English  Oliver,  and  Burpo  was  originally 
Bonrepos.  Nor  was  the  assent  to  this 
distortion  due  to  ignorance  on  the  part 
of  the  Frenchmen ;  for  Bonrepos  was  a 
learned  pastor  of  the  Huguenot  church 
in  Boston,  and  the  refugees  were  gener- 
ally of  the  higher  and  cultivated  classes 
of  their  native  land.* 

Very  early  in  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries,  the  merchants  of  France 
became  familiar  with  the  seaports  of  the 
New  England  coast, \  and  readily  fled  to 
Salem  and  Boston  when  the  time  of  peril 
came.  These  emigrants,  as  has  been 
intimated,  sometimes  found  shelter  in 
neighboring  countries  before  coming  to 
America.  The  Channel  Islands,  Jersey 
and  Guernsey,  were  so  filled  with  Protes- 
tant exiles,  that  they  utterly  destroyed 
the  position  which  the  Catholics  had  ob- 
tained. As  many  as  fifty  ministers  of  the 
reformed  faith  went  to  Jersey,  \  whose 
area  is  less  than  that  of  Staten  Island ; 
while  migration  to  England  and  Switzer- 
land was  in  large  bodies.  After  a  short 
stay  in  the  countries  and  islands  near 
to  France,  they  abandoned  all  hope  of 
restoration  to  their  native  land,  and  began 
to  find  their  way  in  larger  or  smaller 
groups  to  the  wilds  of  America. 

When  the  Cabots,  the  Lefavours,  the 
Beadles,  the  Valpys  and  Philip  English 
had  established  themselves  in  Salem,  they 
began  to  bring  over  their  fellow  country- 
men^ •  English,  whose  real  name  was 
L'Anglois,  became  the  owner  of  a  large 
number  of  ships  and  a  great  deal  of  other 
property.  He  kept  his  accounts  in 
French,  and  corresponded  in  that  lan- 
guage with  his  relatives  in  Jersey.  For  a 
long  series  of  years  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  importing  young  men  to  be  apprenticed 
as  sailors,  and  young  girls  to  be  employed 
as  domestic  servants.     They  were  all  of 

*  Baird's  "Emigration  to  America,"  Vol.  I.,  p.  181; 
Vol.  II.,  p.  233. 

t  Baird's  "  Huguenot  Emigration  to  America,"  Vol. 
II.,  p.  191. 

%  "Caesarea"  by  Philip  Faille. 

§  "  Proceedings  of  the  Essex  Institute,"  Vol.  II.,  pp. 
117,  143,  157  and  181. 


502 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


Huguenot  ancestry ;  and  their  descend- 
ants to-day  disclose  their  French  origin 
in  their  personal  appearance.  Between 
the  Connecticut  River  and  Massachusetts 
Bay,  young  men  of  that  line  of  ancestry 
are  by  no  means  rare,  with  large  brown 
eyes,  black  hair  and  slender,  graceful 
figures,  which  proclaim  them  Frenchmen 
in  everything  except  speech ;  and  yet 
their  forefathers  have  been  inhabitants  of 
eastern  Massachusetts  ever  since  the  be- 
ginning of  the  seventeenth  century.  In 
a  little  seaport  near  Salem  there  are  to 
be  found  to-day  at  least  fifty  family  names 
which  are  distinctly  French ;  yet  those 
who  bear  them  have  never  suspected  that 
they  were  of  other  than  English  descent. 

One  instance  will  illustrate  how  the 
French  were  absorbed  into  the  families 
of  the  English  colonists,  and  came  to 
bear  English  names.  In  a  newspaper  pub- 
lished in  Boston  on  the  nineteenth  day 
of  February,  1736,  appeared  the  following 
obituary  notice  :  "  On  the  first  instant, 
departed  this  life,  at  Providence,  Mr. 
Gabriel  Bernon,  in  the  92  nd  year  of  his 
age.  He  was  a  gentleman  by  birth  and 
estate,  born  in  Rochelle,  in  France  ;  and 
about  fifty  years  ago  he  left  his  native 
country,  and  the  greatest  part  of  his  es- 
tate, and,  for  the  cause  of  true  religion, 
fled  into  New  England,  where  he  has  ever 
since  continued,  and  behaved  himself  as 
a  zealous  Protestant  professor.  He  was 
courteous,  honest  and  kind,  and  died  in 
great  faith  and  hope  in  his  Redeemer, 
and  assurance  of  Salvation ;  and  has  left 
a  good  name  among  his  acquaintances. 
He  evidenced  the  power  of  Christianity 
in  his  great  sufferings,  by  leaving  his 
country  and  his  great  estate,  that  he 
might  worship  God  according  to  his  con- 
science. He  has  left  three  daughters 
which  he  had  by  his  first  wife  (a  French 
gentlewoman),  one  of  which  is  the  virtu- 
ous wife  of  the  Hon.  William  Coddington, 
Esq. ;  three  daughters  and  a  son  by  a 
gentlewoman  of  New  England,  who  be- 
haved to  him  as  a  virtuous  woman  and 
gave  singular  proof  of  a  good  wife  ever 
till  his  death." 

Those  six  girls  undoubtedly  married, — 
for  old  maids  were  not  popular  in  "  old 
colony  times ;  "  and  though  the  family 
name  was  lost,  the  genius  of  the  Hugue- 


nots was  just  as  certainly  transmitted  to 
succeeding  generations. 

How  extended  may  have  been  this  in- 
fluence flowing  into  our  national  life  may 
be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  of  the  twen- 
ty-five thousand  or  more  English  who 
were  to  be  found  in  New  England  toward 
the  middle  or  latter  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  the  descendants  are 
reckoned  by  Mr.  Fiske  at  fifteen  millions.* 
To  these  few  thousands  of  English,  the 
Huguenots,  as  admitted  by  Palfrey,  made 
an  accession  of  one  hundred  and  fifty 
families,  —  which  means  nearly  a  thousand 
persons,  as  families  went  then ;  but  after 
this  first  flood  had  spent  its  strength, 
nearly  every  ship  from  London,  accord- 
ing to  Baird,  for  many  years  brought  ad- 
ditions to  those  who  had  come  in  the 
mass.f  The  exodus  from  France  contin- 
ued, from  1666,  for  full  fifty  years;  and 
within  that  time  at  least  a  million  French- 
men were  expatriated,  and  those  the 
flower  of  the  nation.  %  Many  at  first  sought 
shelter  in  Holland ;  great  numbers  in 
every  conceivable  craft  reached  the  shores 
of  England,  barely  escaping  starvation  and 
shipwreck ;  §  and,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
neighboring  islands  of  the  English  Chan- 
nel were  crowded  with  them.  It  is  not 
possible  that  less  than  four  or  five  thou- 
sand came  to  dwell  in  New  England. 

Even  if  the  numbers  were  smaller  than 
is  probable,  we  can  heartily  concur  in  Mr. 
Fiske's  opinion  "  of  the  population  of 
France  driven  away  and  added  to  the 
Protestant  population  of  northern  Ger- 
many and  England  and  America.  The 
gain  to  these  countries  and  the  damage  to 
France,"  he  says,  "was  far  greater  than 
the  mere  figures  would  imply ;  for  in 
determining  the  character  of  a  commu- 
nity, a  hundred  selected  men  and  women 
are  far  more  potent  than  a  thousand  men 
and  women  taken  at  random."  || 

That  gain  for  New  England  is  distinctly 
revealed  in  the  development  of  Yankee 
enterprise  along  those  very  lines  in  which 
it  was  started  by  French  emigrees.  But 
these  were  also  present  in  the  requisite 

*  Fiske's  "  Beginnings  of  New  England,"  p.  170. 

t  Baird's  "  The  Huguenot  Emigration  to  America/' 
Vol.  II.,  pp.  193,  196. 

1  Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  Art.  "  Huguenots." 

§  Baird's  "  Huguenot  Emigration  to  America/'  Vol. 
1 1.,' p.  188. 

||  Fiske's  "  Beginnings  of  New  England,"  p.  161. 


THE   HUGUENOT  IN  NEW  ENGLAND. 


503 


numbers ;  and  when  the  eye  is  once 
trained  and  the  ear  attuned  to  detect  the 
names  which  indicate  Huguenot  ancestry, 
it  is  astonishing  how  frequently  they  re- 
veal themselves.  If  New  Englanders  are 
closely  questioned  concerning  their  gen- 
ealogy, there  are  very  few  who  do  not 
confess  to  some  trace  of  French  blood, 
though  it  be  slight.  This  is  peculiarly 
true  of  the  eastern  half  of  Massachusetts. 
In  the  northern  parts  of  Vermont,  New 
Hampshire  and  Maine,  the  blond  com- 
plexion and  unusual  stature  of  the  Eng- 
lish still  prevail.  Yet  that  fact  affects 
our  position  very  little ;  for  it  was  east- 
ern Massachusetts  that  was  held  in  view 
by  Hawthorne  and  the  other  American 
authors  who  have  been  referred  to. 
After  all,  is  it  not  Boston  and  its  sur- 
roundings that  largely  give  character  to 
New  England  5  Many  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  three  northern  states  appear  to 
be  the  unchanged  Englishmen,  as  Motley 
describes  them  in  the  report  of  the 
Dutch  Ambassador  who  saw  the  England 
of  Elizabeth's  time.  The  English  of 
that  period  certainly  had  the  head  tones 
and  the  Yankee  twang  which  mark 
rural  New  England  speech  even  to  this 
day. 

When  the  Huguenots  contributed  their 
genial  presence  to  our  population,  it  was 
like  the  influx  of  a  gladdening  river  into 
a  thirsty  land,  carrying  joy  wherever  it 
goe;.  At  first,  like  all  foreigners,  they 
were  reserved,  and  marriages  were  con- 
fined to  their  own  nationality ;  but  there 
is  no  instrumentality  like  our  public 
schools  for  breaking  down  national  or 
race  prejudices,  —  and  the  second  or 
third  generation  found  alliances  that  made 


Americans  of  them  all.  How  rapidly 
nationalities  merge  in  this  country  is  seen 
in  a  case  that  is  not  imaginary,  of  a  young 
man  whose  father  was  a  Frenchman  and 
whose  mother  was  an  American  of  Eng- 
lish descent.  His  wife's  mother  is  an 
Irishwoman,  and  her  father  a  German. 
Thus  that  marriage  rolled  four  nationali- 
ties into  one  within  two  generations.  But 
between  the  Huguenot  and  the  Puritan 
there  was  no  stream  to  bridge  over.  They 
had  in  their  common  Calvinism  and  love 
of  freedom  a  bond  of  sympathy  and  union 
that  brought  them  into  harmony  as  soon 
as  their  tongues  had  learned  to  speak  a 
common  language. 

It  is  evident  that  the  absorption  of  the 
Huguenots  would  occur  more  rapidly  and 
effectually  after  than  before  the  Revolu- 
tionary war,  and  would  manifest  itself 
unmistakably  during  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  the  time  when  the 
contrast  between  the  New  Englander  and 
the  Old  Englander  made  so  strong  an 
impression  on  Hawthorne  and  Emerson. 
The  result  is  so  noteworthy  that  it  is  mar- 
vellous that  we  did  not  long  ago  recognize 
the  method  of  the  brewing  of  that  race  of 
men  and  the  material  which  entered  into 
it.  There  is  a  substance  known  to  chem- 
istry as  diastase,  which  is  an  active  ele- 
ment in  the  germination  of  every  seed, 
and  which,  on  being  sprinkled,  never  so 
sparingly,  over  a  great  mass  of  the  brewer's 
cloudy,  pasty  "  mash,"  clears  it  instantly 
and  leaves  it  a  sweet,  pure,  transparent 
liquid.  Such  an  office  might  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Huguenot  into  New  Eng- 
land seem  to  have  performed,  in  dissipat- 
ing the  heaviness  and  dogged  prejudice 
of  our  insular  kinsmen. 


A    POINT   OF   CONTACT. 


By  Annie  Rothwell. 


E    ward 
when 


very    quiet 
night-nurse 


gardens ; 
stretched 


was 

the  ~.6, 
went  on  duty.  Through 
the  three  long  windows 
the  breeze  came  cool 
and  soft  from  the  lake 
across  the  intervening 
and  over  the  sleeping  waters 
a  shining  ^rack  of  light  from 
the  lately  risen  moon,  looking  to  weary 
eyes  like  a  path  to  that  heaven  for  which 
yet  more  weary  souls  grew  sick  with 
yearning.  In  the  fourteen  white  pallets 
there  had  been  no  change  since  the 
morning,  save  that  in  one  cot  in  a 
screened  recess  by  the  window,  which 
had  then  been  vacant,  there  was  now  an 
occupant ;  a  dark  head  lay  on  the  pillow, 
and  a  large  and  strong  but  now  nerve- 
less hand  moved  restlessly  to  and  fro 
over  the   snowy  spread. 

"  There's  one  new  case,"  the  day- 
nurse  had  said  as  she  surrendered  her 
charge  ;  "  but  he's  not  likely  to  trouble  you 
much.  He  should  by  rights  have  been 
in  the  accident  ward  ;  but  number  eight 
there  is  very  violent  to-night ;  and  as  this 
man's  only  chance,  if  he  has  a  chance  at 
all,  is  quiet,  they  have  put  him  here.  It's 
doubtful  if  he  lives  till  morning  ;  but  if 
not,  the  doctor  says  he'll  probably  sleep 
away.  There's  not  much  to  do  for  him 
if  he  lives ;  and  if  he  dies,  and  you  want 
help,  you're  to  call  on  Rose  Gray,  the 
probationer  in   the   next   ward." 

"What  is  it?  who  is  he?"  had  whis- 
pered the  on-coming  nurse.  She  was 
out  of  her  probation,  had  suffered  much 
and  seen  much  suffering,  but  she  had  not 
yet  learned  callousness  in  view  of  ap- 
proaching death. 

"  Shot- wound,"  the  other  had  returned. 
"  He's  got  no  friends  here.  He's  a 
lumberman  down  from  the  shanties  on  a 
spree.  There  was  a  drunken  row  in 
some  tavern  down  by  the  wharves,  and 
somebody's  revolver  came  a  little  too 
handy.      He's  struck  in  the  lung,  and  the 

501 


ball's  in  yet,  but  they  can't  look  for  it  till 
daylight — maybe  there'll  be  no  need  to 
look  for  it  then.  What  brutes  they  are, 
those  men  in  the  shanties  !  "  she  ended, 
with  a  little  shudder,  half  levity  and  half 
simulated  horror. 

The  smooth  forehead  of  the  night- 
nurse  contracted  in  a  frown,  and  a  quiver 
stirred  her  lip.  "  Good  night"  was  all 
she  said  as  she  turned  away. 

The  lights  were  low,  and  the  room  was 
silent  and  cool.  The  nurse  went  the 
round  of  her  charges,  mostly  quiet  now 
in  that  first  repose  which  early  darkness 
brings  after  a  day  of  pain.  She  had  as 
yet  no  essential  duties  to  perform ;  but 
she  gave  drink  to  one,  smoothed  the  pil- 
low of  another,  and  laid  a  gentle  hand  on 
the  aching  head  of  a  third.  Then  she 
studied  the  orders  in  the  book  that  lay 
under  the  shaded  drop-light  on  the  table, 
where  the  added  item  read  thus  :  — 

"  Number  eleven.  Wound  not  to  be 
touched.  Medicine  every  second  hour. 
Stimulant   if  needful." 

She  sighed  as  she  recognized  the  hope- 
less meaning  of  the  entry,  and  at  last 
approached  the  bed  where  number  eleven 
lay.  He  was  not  attractive  to  look  on. 
His  head  was  swathed  in  a  wet  bandage, 
and  on  his  face  the  ghastly  pallor  of 
mortality  struggled  with  the  brown  scorch 
of  sun  and  wind.  The  face  itself  was  of 
a  low  type,  with  scanty  brow,  and  a 
mouth  of  coarse  outline,  which  a  rough 
growth  of  beard  but  half  concealed. 
Toil  and  exposure,  privation  and  dissipa- 
tion had  set  their  stamp  upon  him.  He 
did  not  look  like  one  to  whom  virtue  had 
been  a  necessity,  or  high  thought  as 
daily  bread. 

Perhaps  the  nurse  was  given  to  reflec- 
tion. Perhaps  her  occupation  had  soft- 
ened her  heart.  She  stood  long  looking 
thoughtfully  down,  in  the  dim  light,  on 
the  helpless  form  before  her.  Where 
were  now  the  strength  and  the  subtlety 
bespoken  by  the  massive,  powerful  frame 


